I made a bunch of custom/repro MissingNo cards in the style of first-gen Pokemon TCG cards.

[Radio F Software]

Hello! I currently have an open thread in the 2600 programming forum where I am looking to hire someone to help me finish a romhack that I will then release on cartridge form. That's going to cost money! Paying the programmer who helps me, paying the artist who will do the box/label art, and of course paying the publisher for the physical carts. So I've started selling cool stuff to help fund this and other endeavors of mine.

 

What I'm offering in this post is something for the Pokemon fans out there. In the first generation Game Boy games there was a glitch Pokemon known as MissingNo. It's arguably THE most famous glitch in video game history because everyone accessed it in order to duplicate their rare items. Once upon a time I had a Geocities website where I documented everything I could dig up on the glitch through extensive testing and program analysis using what few tools were available in the late 90's for Game Boy emulation. I've always been enamored with this glitch and it's a shame Nintendo has never once given us a wink and nod to it. To date MissingNo is the only Pokemon whose name is not a registered trademark (which is probably because it's not a real Pokemon but whatever).

 

So I designed a custom MissingNo trading card that I am proudly declaring is a perfect 1:1 replica of a first-gen Pokemon card by Wizards of the Coast. I designed this card using high-res scans of a real card and used a special tool to match the exact fonts and their sizes used everywhere on the originals. I looked into how real cards are worded and replicated the style of language for the card's power and attack. MissingNo's listed stats are taken direct from its glitched Pokedex entry. Everything about this card is a love letter to the late nineties Pokemon scene. I poured hours of work and many weekends into designing just this one card.

 

Feedback from the various places I've shown the card have been universally positive. The local game and hobby store even told me they were a little concerned because it was too good of a replica. But I'm not looking to sell this as counterfeit or bootleg, I acknowledge upfront that this is a custom card and it is not a real one. This is a piece of art. (However I also playtested this card in nearly 100 games of the TCG and adjusted it as I went along so if you wanted to use this in a retro-themed deck it's a fair and balanced card.)

 

>>> If you would like to order a card from me you can find them on Etsy. <<< Each card is just four dollars. Shipping is 68 cents within the United States and $1.50 everywhere else. Yes, I am sending them using a postage stamp. Yes, that's a risk. No, it hasn't been an issue (yet). That's purely to keep the costs low. Again my plan is to use the funds raised from selling these cards to pay for the expenses of my upcoming 2600 game as well as some other fun stuff I want to sell in the future like lapel pins and keychains.

 

I have to sell them on Etsy because I did too good of a job replicating the card and eBay pulled my listing thinking I was selling knock-off goods. But if you'd like to see my eBay feedback to determine if I am a trustworthy seller here is my account. My only negative feedback was because I accidentally listed something for sale twice and when the second buyer bought it I realized my error and refunded him immediately with an explanation. He still saw it fit to neg rate me.

 

Thanks for checking out my post. I'll answer any questions you may have. Here is the raw image used for the front of the card in case you want to get a closer look at it.

[Radio F Software]

Woke up to a couple of sales notifications on the Etsy app! 😁 Someone even bought a playset! That's actually not an uncommon thing I've noticed while selling these cards. I was expecting 99% of my sales to be individual cards sold to people more as a curiosity and collector's item but I guess designing MissingNo to be a viable card for use in a deck has its appeal too because I've sold several playsets to buyers which was surprising.

 

Thank you to the buyers, I wasn't able to get to the post office on my lunch break today to send them out but I'll get there for sure tomorrow. I have an international order to mail so I need to buy a stamp for that so I'll send all the other orders along with the international one tomorrow.

[Radio F Software]

The cards have been selling well on Etsy! I'm not sure if the quantity available is made public to viewers but if it is you can ignore the low stock; I listed 50 each on eBay/Etsy and when eBay canned my listing I migrated all the remaining cards over to the Etsy stack but I just didn't update the amount available. Also the other half of my order arrived from the printer this week so I have a LOT more in stock. I'm getting ready to promote them in all the Pokemon TCG collector Facebook groups when I get some free time. I'm still a little bummed that organically I'm not getting much discovery now that eBay pulled the listing (I was selling a split of about 70/30 when you compared eBay to Etsy) but at least it's been consistent if a little slow.